February 2007

The below correspondent sent me a URL to a Web site on which had been posted a philosophical essay. I do not respond to URLs and asked the writer to send me a note with his beliefs that I could respond to. This is his reply.

Sorry, that would turn my content into your content. Anyway, it’s more of an open letter to those who would declare themselves atheists. However, to summarize it, my contention is that to embrace atheism is an exercise in asinine assumtion to rival even the strangest schisms of any religion, and it is my belief that time spent trying to disprove the obtuse ramblings of prophets would be better spent elsewhere. Your website encourages more uselessness. Thanks.

Let me respond to your calling my way of thinking asinine and useless by saying that you are simply incorrect. You either assume that all atheists declare flat-out that there is no god, or you find foolish those of us who are not religious because we find arguments for religion to be lacking. This makes you either ignorant (which is excusable), disrespectful of scientific process (which is unfortunate), or disinterested in whether there is a god or not (which is bizarre, given how important it would be if such a thing existed).

Regarding the uselessness of this site, I consider it very useful for people of all philosophical bents to examine their own beliefs. This is the only way that people can be sure that they are being consistent and behaving intelligently. That doesn’t seem useless to me at all.

Finally, I am sorry to say that, regardless of your beliefs, you are coming across as a complete ass. If you’d like to change that perception and discuss this subject rationally, I’d be interested in hearing more about what you believe.